Gaudreau, Markstrom propel Flames to second straight win against Canucks

CALGARY -- Johnny Gaudreau had a goal and an assist for the Calgary Flames in their second straight win against the Vancouver Canucks, 5-2 at Scotiabank Saddledome on Monday.

Jacob Markstrom made 25 saves for the Flames (2-0-1), who won 3-0 against Vancouver here on Saturday.
"All our players have been contributing," Calgary coach Geoff Ward said. "That's what I really like about our last two wins. It was probably a pretty complete game for us the other night. Tonight, we played two real good periods out of three. But everybody's contributing. We're liking a lot of the things we're seeing right now."
Jake Virtanen and Tyler Myers scored, and Thatcher Demko made 27 saves for the Canucks (1-3-0), who have lost three in a row.
"I think when things aren't going your way it's a little bit easy to get negative, but I think in this type of season when the games are so quick you don't have time to get down on yourself," Demko said. "You have to flip the page and get back at it. We play pretty much every other day this year and some back-to-backs too. I think that's a good thing, especially like this where it's not really going our way."

Virtanen's wrist shot through traffic from the point deflected off Flames defenseman Juuso Valimaki and past Markstrom to give Vancouver a 1-0 lead at 10:17 of the first period.
Gaudreau took a return pass from Sean Monahan and flicked a shot over Demko's shoulder to tie it 1-1 at 12:05 of the second, and Mikael Backlund gave the Flames a 2-1 lead when he scored 1:25 later on a rebound at 13:30.
"We needed some juice from something," Gaudreau said. "That first period wasn't great for us. I think everyone kind of stepped up, all four lines and the [defensemen] and helped [Markstrom]. We got a lead there. Big second."
Elias Lindholm one-timed Gaudreau's pass on a 5-on-3 power play at 19:58 of the second to extend Calgary's lead to 3-1. The goal came on Canucks center Elias Pettersson's second penalty of the period.
"I was just disappointed in myself, letting the team down taking another stupid penalty and they scored another goal," Pettersson said. "I was just disappointed in myself for being selfish and letting my frustration take another dumb penalty. It's not going to happen again."

Mark Giordano made it 4-1 with a slap shot on the power play at 6:40 of the third period.
The Flames were 2-for-7 on the power play and have scored six goals with the man-advantage in three games this season.
"When you play a team that you played recently, they know what you're about on the power play so they definitely did some adjustments, so we had to do some as well," Lindholm said. "But overall, I think we scored two tonight and if you score two every night, you're going to win a lot of games."
Myers scored at 13:15 with a shorthanded goal that deflected off Giordano's stick to make it 4-2.
Rasmus Andersson scored an empty-net goal with 54 seconds remaining for the 5-2 final.
"We've just got to be better pros," Canucks forward J.T. Miller said. "We get paid a lot of money to do this. We have to be ready to play 60 minutes, or as close to it as possible."
NOTES: Flames forward Dillon Dube left the game at 7:07 of the second period with an undisclosed injury. Ward did not have an update. … Giordano passed Dion Phaneuf with his 49th career power-play goal, the fourth most by a Flames defenseman (Al MacInnis, 102; Gary Suter, 54; Paul Reinhart, 53). … Canucks defenseman Nate Schmidt played his 400th NHL game. … Miller, who was unavailable for Vancouver's first three games because of COVID-19 protocol, made his season debut and had one assist in 18:31 of ice time.